There's precious little in the guide you would not expect from Schmidt, who kicks off by saying that many of his friends are migrating, and that “the latest high-end phones from Samsung (Galaxy S4), Motorola (Verizon Droid Ultra) and the LG Nexus 5 (for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile) have better screens, are faster, and have a much more intuitive interface. They are a great Christmas present to an iPhone user!”

Just what all other Android handset-makers are to make of that is anyone's guess, but the omission of HTC won't be welcome at that struggling outfit, while the likes of Lenovo and Sony are presumably wondering why they bother getting out of bed in the morning after learning that the influential Schmidt doesn't rate their best efforts on par with Apple's.

There's a little America-centrism at work here, too. China's Xiaomi is widely held to make a cracking 'Droid, and Vulture South has briefly beheld marvellous Asia-only kit from Lenovo.

Having shown off his diplomatic and marketing skills in the introduction, Schmidt goes on to show he's not conversant with the gentle art of technical writing with procedures that use inconsistent verbs, fail to open each step of a procedure with an active verb and make assumptions that lead to user-befuddling ambiguities.

His overall intention, however, is crystal clear as the guide makes no attempt at balance: Schmidt assumes you're going Google from end-to-end and offers instructions accordingly. He even suggests iPhone owners could consider doing without a final backup for their photos and instead “... send them to Gmail and download into the Android phone.” ®